Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets

Noble Rot

And so it goes on from eon to eon, these inevitable cycles, said Vico. Man learns to use his reason to master the world around him, only to turn it on himself. He strives to discover truth and instead concocts the delusory spectacles with which he destroys himself. From a modest republic of the self‐reliant, he converts his nation into a boastful empire of debtors that eventually collapses of its own weight. He rises, only to fall.

Vico's is the classical view of history, the tragic view, and it tells us that history does not pull in at the doorstep of progress, democracy, and liberalism like the 5:15 from Paddington. Instead, history rises and falls … like waves emerging from the ocean spume and disappearing back into it.

In modern Western culture, time is linear. We see it going forward, in a kind of eternal march of progress toward the future. But in pagan cultures, it is circular. For instance, the Hindi word for tomorrow, kal, is the same as the word for yesterday, because yesterday is in the future, too: kal (yesterday)—aaj (today)—kal (tomorrow).

Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and yesterday, again. Rise and decline.

It makes one wonder.

Over time, everything breaks down and dies. Even granite eventually is worn down to a fine sand. No tree ever grows to the sky, they say on Wall Street.

Does anything ever escape decay, ultimately?

We have no answer, but we notice one thing—like beautiful women, fine wines, or graceful buildings, civilizations too are never more alluring ...